The Impact of Structured Doctoral Programs on Doctoral Candidature and Subsequent Job Placement – Examples from Germany

Author(s):

Jakob Tesch(presenting / submitting)Jens Ambrasat(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 06 D, Doctoral Programs in Various Perspectives

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

15:30-17:00

Room:

340. [Main]

Chair:

Aidan Seery

Contribution

The goal of the Bologna Process is to establish a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) with standardized curricula for Bachelor, Master and doctoral degrees. The London Communiqué stressed the importance of structured doctoral programs for curricula reform in doctoral training and the transfer of skills for occupations inside of academia and outside (Bologna Process 2007). In Germany structured doctoral programs have been introduced since the 1980s with similar goals: The programs were expected to provide formalized training conditions, improve the quality of supervision and reduce the time to degree for doctoral candidates whilst qualifying for occupations in research and beyond (Enders & Bornmann 2001; Wissenschaftsrat 2002, 2011). Today a variety of structured doctoral programs exist in Germany alongside more traditional ways of doctoral candidature such as research assistants, scholarship holders or candidates working on their dissertation external to universities and research institutes, the so called external candidates. Each of the different pathways differs with respect to the intensity of supervision, teaching duties, access to resources required for research and the time available for working on the dissertation (Hauss et al., 2012).

The processes of standardization in doctoral training and the introduction of the diverse doctoral programs come not without criticism. Throughout Europe critics have raised concern whether the focus on employability and skills demanded by the labor market external to academia might lead to a neglect of those competencies required for research (Schreiterer 2011). In Germany the Wissenschaftsrat (Council for Science and Humanities) clearly positioned itself stating that any attempt not putting original research into the center of the dissertation neglects the logic of the German doctorate whilst stressing the importance of imparting transferable skills (Wissenschaftsrat 2011). Thus, structured doctoral programs are located between two poles: the individual qualification for a career in research through an original contribution of knowledge to the field and imparting transferable skills which are of use for the labor market outside of academia.

In this context, the job placement within or outside of academia is of special interest. While an early analysis of graduates from collaborative research centers showed no impact on the subsequent job placement in academia compared to other doctorate holders (Enders & Kottmann 2009) it is largely unclear how other structured programs perform with regard to who is placed in academia, who not and why. Moreover, it is known that doctorate holders placed in academia are on average more satisfied with the independence and intellectual challenge of their occupation but less satisfied with their salary and job security compared to doctorate holders working outside of academia (Auriol et al., 2013; Waaijer, 2014). Against this background, the question arises whether the form of doctoral education- in particular structured doctoral programs - has any effect on the output of doctoral training and, one step further, on the job placement inside or outside of academia.

We are aiming at an evaluation of different structured doctoral programs in comparison to other pathways of doctoral candidature such as scholarship holders, research assistants and external candidates.

Method

In order to carry out the evaluation, we take advantage of the longitudinal doctoral candidates and doctorate holders study ProFile, initially funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) hosted at the Institute of Research Information and Quality Assurance (iFQ). This unique panel study surveys doctoral candidates from all fields from the beginning of their candidature until conferral of the degree or dropout from doctoral training. The subsequent job placement inside as well as outside of academia is also analyzed for those who successfully completed their doctorate. Having started in 2009 the panel now includes more than 10,000 doctoral candidates of different cohorts out of which the first 2,800 have successfully graduated and are currently surveyed regarding their transition into the labor market. We analyze this subsample of 2,800 doctorate holders exploiting information collected during their candidature, on their dissertation as well as subsequent job placement. Our key explanatory variable is the membership in a structured doctoral program. The data allow us to distinguish different types of doctoral programs, e. g. those funded by the DFG, other foundations or the German Länder as well as the degree to which these programs are structured. Thus, information on the scope of the structured doctoral programs can be used for a differentiated assessment of their impact. We distinguish members in structured doctoral programs from research assistants, scholarship holders and external candidates. Our analysis proceeds in two steps. First, we compare the four different pathways according to their degree of formalization and structuration looking at courses visited the intensity of supervision and doctoral agreements. Results reveal that formalization is not all guns and roses. Instead structured doctoral programs vary remarkably in their degree of formalization while the other pathways also feature elements of formalized training. In a second step we analyze the performance and outcome of these four pathways. Particularly, we examine the impact of membership in a structured doctoral program on the satisfaction with the supervision, publication output during the candidature and the job placement inside or outside academia after conferral of the degree in comparison to research assistants, scholarship holders and external candidates. We will proceed stepwise in order to pin down the effect of structured doctoral programs to specific elements of the programs using a hierarchical regression approach.

Expected Outcomes

Our analysis will aid to a better understanding of the different pathways of doctoral candidature shedding light on the relations between the different pathways of doctoral training and output measures such as publications and satisfaction with supervision as well as the more distal results of doctoral training such as job placement in academia. According to the political goals linked to the structured doctoral programs, it should be expected that structured programs perform better with respect to employability and labor market demands. Our analysis provides new insights compared to prior research (e. g. Enders & Kottmann 2009; Groen et al. 2008) due to the longitudinal nature of our data which allows the combination of factors measured during candidature and after graduation, thus decreasing potential bias and extrapolating the background story inherent to the different pathways to the doctorate. We exploit the full spectrum of information of our data differentiating various forms of structured doctoral programs as well as different elements of formalization. Consequentially our analysis is of value for a best practice transfer aiding the design of future structured doctoral programs in other countries. From our analysis we expect to shed light on the questions which elements of formalization have an effect and which are an overregulation of doctoral candidature thus providing evidence suited to structure future discourses on the establishment of an EHEA better.

References

Auriol, Laudeline, Max Misu, and Rebecca A. Freeman. 2013. Careers of Doctorate Holders: Analysis of Labour Market and Mobility Indicators. Bologna Process. 2007. London Communique. Towards the European Higher Education Area: responding to challenges in a globalized world. Available online at: https://www.eqar.eu/fileadmin/documents/bologna/London-Communique-18May2007.pdf Enders, Jürgen and Lutz Bornmann. 2001. Karriere mit Doktortitel? Ausbildung, Berufsverlauf und Berufserfolg von Promovierten, Frankfurt a.M., New York: Campus. Enders, Jürgen and Andrea Kottmann. 2009. Neue Ausbildungsformen - andere Werdegänge? Ausbildungs- und Berufsverläufe von Absolventinnen und Absolventen der Graduiertenkollegs der DFG, Weinheim: WILEY-VCH. Groen, Jeffrey A., George H. Jakubson, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Scott Condie, and Albert Y. Liu. 2008. "Program design and student outcomes in graduate education" Economics of Education Review. 27:111–124. Hauss, Kalle, Marc Kaulisch, Manuela Zinnbauer, Jakob Tesch, Anna Fräßdorf, Sibylle Hinze, and Stefan Hornbostel. 2012. Promovierende im Profil: Wege, Strukturen und Rahmenbedingungen von Promotionen in Deutschland. Ergebnisse aus dem Profile-Promovierendenpanel, Berlin. Schreiterer, Ulrich. 2008. "Concluding Summary. Form Follows Function: Research, the Knowledge Economy, and the Features of Doctoral Education" Higher Education in Europe. 33:149–157. Waaijer, C. 2014. The influence of career perspectives on the job choice of recent PhD graduates: a survey of five Dutch universities. In: Proceedings of the science and technology indicators conference (STI) 2014, Leiden. Wissenschaftsrat. 2002. Empfehlungen zur Doktorandenausbildung. Drs. 5459/02, Saarbrücken. Wissenschaftsrat. 2011. Anforderungen an die Qualitätssicherung der Promotion. Positionspapier, Köln.

Author Information

Jakob Tesch (presenting / submitting)

iFQ

Berlin

Jens Ambrasat (presenting)

Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance